Mark Barenberg is an Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law and Director of the Program on Labor Law and Political Economy at Columbia Law School. He is a notable expert in the fields of labor and employment law, international labor rights, global economic institutions, constitutional law, and legal political theory. Barenberg has been the principal draftsperson of many federal, state, and local laws regulating labor conditions in companies supplying U.S. manufacturers and governments.

Prior to joining the Law School's faculty in 1987, Barenberg taught social theory, economic history, and labor relations at Harvard University. Barenberg served as a law clerk to the Honorable Eugene H. Nickerson of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York from 1982 to 1983. He also practiced labor, constitutional, and international law at the Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky & Lieberman law firm.

Barenberg was a visiting professor at Peking University and Yale Law School. The European University Institute also hosted Barenberg as a visiting fellow in 2009.

Barenberg is a member of the International Commission on Labor Rights, the Law and Society Association, and the Labor and Employment Relations Association. He is an independent expert of the International Labor Organization and a director of the Worker Rights Consortium. Barenberg serves as chairperson for the Workforce Investment Network.

His publications include: “Toward a Democratic Model of Private Labour Monitoring,” (B. Bercusson and C. Estlund, eds.), Regulating Labour in the Wake of Globalisation, Hart, 2008; “Legitimacy and Capacity in Private Labor Monitoring,” (Jeffrey Hirsch, ed.), Proceedings of NYU 57th Annual Conference on Labor, 2008; and “Corporate Social Responsibility and Labor Rights in US-Based Corporations,” (M. Feher, ed.), Non-Governmental Politics, MIT, 2007.

Barenberg received a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1978, where he served as editor of the Harvard Law Review, as well as conducting graduate study in economics and history at Harvard University. He earned is M.Sc from the London School of Economics in 1982. He graduated from Harvard College in 1977.